Retribution For Sexual Harassment At Workplace Still Elusive
Nearly all sexual harassment goes unreported, and those that do report tend to face severe retribution.
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The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have brought renewed attention to workplace sexual harassment. However, the vast majority of allegations go unreported, and those who do report tend to face troubling outcomes.
Our new research, released on 12 December, analysed all sexual harassment complaints filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and state Fair Employment Practices Agencies between 2012 and 2016.
We found that nearly all sexual harassment goes unreported, and those that do report tend to face severe retribution and limited redress.
In other words, 99.8 percent of people who experience sexual harassment at work never file a sexual harassment charge.
Most of these charges are judged by the EEOC to be potentially legally actionable when they are first filed. This suggests that the vast majority of sexual harassment discrimination charges appear credible and meet the high legal bar for a finding of sexual harassment. Compared to all other discrimination complaints, we find that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission treats charges of sexual harassment discrimination quite seriously and did so even before the #MeToo movement.
Sexual Harassment At Work
Every year, there are about 9,242 claims of sexual harassment at work filed with federal or state agencies. But a new study estimates that this is just a tiny percentage of all incidents.
(Photo Courtesy: The Conversation)
How Do Employers Respond To Sexual Harassment Complaints?
The very low proportion of employees who file sexual harassment complaints is likely a function of employers’ typically punitive responses: 68 percent of sexual harassment allegations include a charge of employer retaliation.
Almost two-thirds of people who file a charge lose their jobs as a result of their complaint.
We do not know whether job loss or retaliation occurred after the target reported the sexual harassment internally in their workplace or after the charge was filed with the EEOC or state Fair Employment Practices Agencies. What is clear is that complaining about sexual harassment is quite dangerous, inciting employer retaliation and firing in most instances.
Punitive Responses
About two-thirds of people who report workplace sexual harassment to a state or federal agency say they then experience negative consequences at work.
This pattern of extreme retribution fits with past research. Employers, following the advice of legal counsel, often react to internal discrimination complaints with aggressive attacks on those who complain. This tactic is designed to isolate the charging party and to send a message to other workers that the cost of pursuing legal remedies to discrimination will be prohibitively high.
Are There Any Benefits To Filing A Sexual Harassment Charge?
After the charge is filed, the EEOC has several routes to resolve charges, any of which can lead to monetary or other benefits for the charging party.
On intake, the EEOC judges 88 percent of sexual harassment charges as plausibly legally actionable. Many of the rest are excluded for administrative reasons, such as late filing. False claims appear to be quite rare.
At the same time, most people who file discrimination charges, including discrimination charges that the EEOC initially judges to be legally actionable, do not receive any benefit.
Claim Outcomes
The majority of people who report workplace sexual harassment to a federal or state agency do not receive any benefits.
High-profile media cases often focus on large monetary settlements for the targets of sexual harassment. For example, Fox News paid former broadcaster Gretchen Carlson 20 million US dollars to settle her sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.
But outcomes for most sexual harassment charges are much smaller. Charging parties who received monetary compensation for being sexual harassed at work were awarded 24,700 dollars on average. About half received less than 10,000 dollars.
Big paydays for sexual harassment discrimination charges are vanishingly rare – only 1 percent of charges resulted in monetary compensation over 100,000 dollars.
Monetary Benefits
Most people who report workplace sexual harassment to a federal or state agency do not receive any money. The average amount received is 24,700 dollars.
Are Harassment Claims A Legal Problem Or Managerial Problem?
Current practices do not appear to serve charging parties well. Most cases appear legally plausible, but most receive no benefits. For those who do receive money, the amount is typically meagre, typically less than 10,000 dollars, even when someone loses his or her job in the process.
Past research suggests that the most effective routes to ending sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination are through getting managers to take ownership of the problem.
The EEOC made precisely this recommendation in its 2016 report on harassment. To educate employers as to how to reduce sexual and other forms of harassment at work, the agency has introduced training courses in managerial practices and the creation of respectful workplaces.
We think that shifting responsibility from the law to management makes good business, moral and even legal sense.
(This article was first published on The Conversation )
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